The present invention relates generally to microelectronics manufacturing technology.
Microelectronic devices are commonly manufactured on wafers. Microelectronic manufacturing generally involves many processes. Some of the example processes include: evaporation, sputtering, plasma vapor deposition, chemical vapor deposition, plasma etching, electrochemical plating (“ECP”), and chemical mechanical polishing (“CMP”). During some of these manufacturing processes, wafers are moved from one position to another by robotic arms. For example, in ECP, the wafers are moved between electroplating cells, cleaning stations, and wafer transfer stations. The robotic arms are generally controlled by robot controllers, such as computers. Sometimes, for a robotic arm to place a wafer on a wafer cell, the robotic arm may need to be calibrated or the position of the wafer cell be measured. Some of the calibrations and measurements need to be done manually by the equipment operators.